Global Urban Humanities/Future Histories Lab

Borderwall Urbanisms: Dispatches from the US/Mexico Border is a publication produced by the Global Urban Humanities Initiative as part of the Global Urban Humanities Advanced Resaerch Studio, at the University of California, Berkeley, and supported by a generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for the Global Urban Humanities Initiative at the University of California, Berkeley. The opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of the GUH, or of the board of the foundation.

There are fourteen major sister cities along the United States - Mexico border whose urban, cultural, and ecological networks have been bifurcated by a borderwall. With 650 miles of wall already constructed, and the population in these urban areas expected to grow to over 20 million inhabitants over the next decade, the long-term effects of the wall’s construction must be carefully considered now in order to anticipate the consequences of its incision into a context of rapid growth and massive migratory flows, especially as the current political climate calls for further wall construction. Using the U.S.- Mexico borderwall as a site of investigation, this experimental graduate seminar/studio class explored the American borderwalled city as an evolving political, societal, historical, and cultural phenomena. Using experimental methods of analysis, fabrication, and collaboration, students were challenged with examining the complex conditions of borderwall urbanism, creating objects and artistic responses to site and space. Several field trips brought students directly to border sites and provided context and examples of innovative reactions that challenge preconceived notions of boundaries and territories. Students learned from examples of artists, writers, and designers whose work is in reaction to the wall. The final project consisted of individual or collaborative works that were deployed at a site along the border.